11/04/2022
What’s the motor that drives Don Ray Media LLC?
It’s not something that one can learn in “an elevator minute.” It’s a well-planned accumulation of skills that Don Ray honed over a period of more than 50 years.
For those who wish to learn the complete picture, settle in, get comfortable and follow along with this epic adventure.
Don Ray never knew about ADHD, dyslexia, reading disorders, learning disorders, the effects of a “difficult” childhood or about characteristics that are common in people on the autism spector (some really bad and some magically good).
Put them all together and you have a person who dreams dreams that others cannot comprehend.
You have a person who, since childhood, has had to fine tune his own senses and had to learn to read the minds of people who might do him harm — not just in words, but in body language, expressions, tone of voice, eye contact (or lack there of), gait, and even words not spoken.
It’s a person who, from an early age, had to learn to solve problems on his own — a person who had to learn to never embrace obstacles. For him, it was never a question of whether or not he could solve the problem or get past an obstacle — it was a question of how he eventually would do it.
For him, it was about basic survival.
That applied to home life, school, the workplace and even to his combat assignment in Vietnam.
Throughout his life, when Don Ray called out for help during a crisis, a common response was, “Don Ray, you’ll come up with a way of surviving this — you always do!”
He was aware from an early age of — and was sensitive to — unfairness in his immediate world.
Early on, he saw things in black or white. Either something was right or it was wrong — nothing in between — no shades of grey.
When he left the Army, his distorted view of right and wrong led him into the field of law enforcement.
But his interest in, and study of journalism convinced him that a journalist had greater powers of affecting fairness than did law enforcement.
He landed at KNBC-TV, Channel 4 News, in Burbank, California, as a researcher in its newly formed Unit 4 Investigative Team.
The team members were legendary. The late Pete Noyes — already an investigative journalism legend — headed up the unit.
Pete, reporter Warren Olney and field producers Ruben Norte, Peggy Holter and Charlotte Perry cranked out ground-breaking exposés that truly would make a difference in a world that was suffering from corruption and unfairness.
The team counted on my “never embrace obstacles” approach to news gathering, and it paid off again and again.
It was watching these remarkable journalists (and the industry’s best camera man, sound engineer and videotape editor) that he got a glimpse of the skills he would need to become an investigative producer for CBS’s “60 Minutes,” ABC’s “20/20,” “Dateline NBC,” or PBS’s “Frontline.”
The skills Don Ray was determined to master were:
1. Deep research skills including public records expertise.
2. Source development — how to create a relationship with someone that results in her or him WANTING to cooperate and willing to go on camera as well.
3. On-camera interviewing skills that results in people speaking in complete, usable sentence that never require use of the interviewer’s question (because a field producer’s image or voice must never be seen or heard by the viewing audience.
4. Writing skills that create scripts that a reporter or TV anchor can easily read — one that is in active voice and void of dependent clauses (we don’t speak in passive voice or use dependent clauses — so this makes it easier for viewers/listeners of all ages to follow and understand).
5. Video, photography, audio and lighting skills that result in the highest quality of images, movement and sound.
6. Video editing skills that enable him create or supervise a most compelling video and audio presentation.
7. A set of ethical guidelines that focus on 100% accuracy, complete balance that seeks to accurately portray and report on the points of view of ALL of the parties involved in a dispute.
8. Personal skills which ensure that he is open to what anyone involved in the story he’s telling wishes to share — without ever being judgmental, deceptive or dishonest.
9. The ability, willingness and desire to share his knowledge with others individually or in large groups to ensure that these skills and ethics will enhance journalism, research and civil or criminal investigations.
Don Ray studied journalism at Los Angeles Pierce College where he received an A.A. degree in Liberal Arts.
He graduated with a B.A. in journalism and a minor in Political Science from California State University Northridge.
He studied creative writing, oral history interviewing and Spanish at UCLA Extension.
He studied Television News Reporting at USC.
He graduated from Video Symphony Film School on Burbank with a certification in digital video editing.
Don Ray worked as a producer/reporter/director/anchor at KAET-TV, the PBS station in Phoenix, Arizona, where he produced investigative reports for “Arizona Weekly,” the award-winning TV magazine. He worked as a day-to-day capitol reporter for the daily news program, Horizon, and he produced documentaries that aired locally and nationally on PBS.
He wrote freelance stories for Los Angeles Magazine, Westways Magazine, Tampa Bay Monthly Magazine, L.A. Weekly, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, San Bernardino Sun, Riverside Press-Telegram, Omni Magazine, Valley Magazine, Glendale News Press, The Burbank Leader, Rebel Magazine, Tables Magazine, Film News International Magazine and more.
Don Ray worked full time as a producer at Channel Two Investigations at KCBS-TV in Hollywood.
He produced investigative reports for KCAL-TV in Hollywood, Disney’s “The Crusaders” in Burbank, “Inside Edition” in NYC, and “Dateline NBC in Burbank.
Don Ray was the editor-in-chief at “The Daily Press” in Victorville, California, where he also created and was the editor of the Spanish language weekly, “La Prensa del Movaje.”
He was a staff writer at the legal newspaper, “Los Angeles Weekly,” where he wrote profiles of judges and other bench officers in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Kern, Inyo and Imperial Counties.
He ran his own “ENG News Service, that provided breaking news video, public record document retrieval and investigative reporting assistance to every TV news station in Los Angeles as well as to all of network news programs.
Don Ray has written or published books that journalists, law enforcement officers, private investigators, paralegals, genealogists and authors regularly use, including:
“The California Investigators Handbook,” “Checking Out Lawyers,” “Diggin’ Up Gold on the Old Paper Trail; a Workbook for Investigatin’ Folks,” “Say it in Writing, Smooth as Silk,” “Don Ray’s 101 Privacy Tips” and more.
He was a senior instructor at UCLA Extension for 12 years where he taught Investigative Reporting, TV News Writing and Production, and Interviewing for Broadcast.
Don Ray taught Television News Writing at California State University Los Angeles and at Columbia College in Hollywood.
He taught high school journalism and news photography at Excelsior Charter School
in Victorville, California, and was a substitute teacher in Glendale, California.
He trained journalists in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzogovina, Malawi, Nicaragua. Nigeria, Poland, Serbia, and The Ukraine.
He has reported from Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, Serbia, Turkey and Vietnam.
Don Ray has trained thousands of journalists, journalism students, private investigators, law enforcement investigators, D.A. investigators/attorneys, state bar investigators and paralegals across the United States.
He has won awards for his work in radio, television, print, online publications and in journalism education.
The stories that Don Ray broke include LAPD’s child molestation investigation of singer Michael Jackson, President Reagan’s gift mansion courtesy of his “Kitchen Cabinet” cronies and evidence that p**n star Traci Lords had been underage when she posed naked in magazines and performed in hardcore films.
Over the past 45 years, he has conducted scores of audio and video oral history interviews with elderly persons and has has edited them along with family photos, films, videos and documents to create personal documentaries for future generations to experience.
Don Ray has not lost his zeal and unbridled passion for research, news gathering, investigative reporting, interviewing, photography, videography, digging through public records, family histories and interacting with interesting people.
Don Ray Media LLC is an alternative to retiring — to throwing in the towel and putting his journalism and production tools in cold storage.
And at a time when the cost of living is making it difficult to remain afloat, Don Ray is prepared eager to take on assignments that will generate a bit of financial security for the future.
And most importantly, he can continue doing the things that he can to ensure that fairness prevails in our society.
Thanks for reading all this stuff.
I ain’t a bit sorry I shared it!
Don Ray
(760) 900-1735
[email protected]
